The Russian Boot

As Dirty Harry might put it, with all the excitement you might have missed this proclamation from the Russians: "The head of Russia's army said Tuesday that Moscow had no intention to end its military presence in Syria despite the escalating violence and threat of President Bashar al-Assad's fall."

Over here, we've got Russian submarines in the Gulf of Mexico and Russian bombers in our Pacific air space. And a fully funded program to test our missile defense system is in the gutting room of this administration. The estimable Chet Nagle tells us to be very afraid, and he doesn't scare easily...

Meanwhile, we have President Obama pretending he doesn't really want to cut our military strength (when he proudly announced the cuts at year's start, describing it as part of a new post-long-war strategy).

And to round out the portrait, the troops at Fort Bliss were not wildly enthusiastic when the president came to talk to them. They gave him "fleeting applause and extended periods of silence." Well, if the past is a reliable guide to the future, military votes won't really be counted anyway, if the Democrat Party has anything to say about it. Which it does.

In brief: Russia's in Syria and not leaving. Russians are in our seas and our airspace and we're giving them every opportunity to do bad things to us. The president's slashing and burning our military strength and blaming the Republicans for it.

Maybe we shouldn't worry. After all, in many ways Russia's a failed state, with shrinking population, very low birth rates, a vague shadow of the once-awesome Red Army, the traditional levels of alcoholism, and a restive opposition that runs from jailed businessmen to world champion chess masters and all-girl rock groups. They are not going to march into Europe. So what could go wrong?

As I've written at considerable length, Russia is part of a global alliance aimed at us. Putin et. al. are in cahoots with Khamanei, Chavez, the Chinese, Bolivians, Ecuadorians, Nicaraguans and North Koreans and of course Assad. The Russians don't have much of an army, but they are helping the terror masters arm and train our would-be assassins. And they work very closely with the Iranians, especially on intelligence matters. A few years ago I was told by an official of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry that if we wanted to understand what the regime was up to, we had to look carefully at the Russian connection. I took him seriously (he was very precise and very accurate, and eventually the regime killed him), and ever since our conversation I've sniffed about, trying to figure out what the Russians are up to. What sort of trouble can they cause for us?